Why Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell don’t work

When I enlisted in the Army in the early 70s I knew my life was about to become an open book. I was joining the Army Security Agency, an odd entity. Members of the ASA considered themselves somewhat unique from the rest of the units within the Army. The ASA only existed as the Army’s presence at the National Security Agency. If you weren’t assigned to the agency (only the top 3 out of my class of 30-some were) you worked for the agency in an infantry brigade.

If assigned to the agency you had to have a Top Secret Codeword clearance. You were subject to a Special Background Investigation (SBI). Your life was exposed back as far as the investagators could go. Gradeschool friends were interviewed. Ex-girlfriends. Friends of the family. You hope they really are your friends. It’s said that after an SBI the government knows you better than you know yourself. Your memories are frail and forgotten. Their “memories” of you are written down, stored in secure (again we hope) data banks, never erased and never deleted.

If you’ve ever smoked a joint they’ll find out about it. If you ever sucked a cock they’ll find the cock owner’s name and he’ll get a visit from the feds. That’s always perceived as such a nice way for your friends to spend an afternoon, being interview by federal agents. Of course for some it will be the highlight of their year if not their lives.

You have to pass two interviews yourself, one for entrance into the ASA and then at Ft. Meade. You know damned good and well you, on several occasions, smoked grass with Walter before letting him plow your ass. You know they’re going to know when they conduct that SBI. You think if you lie when asked about drug usage and homosexual activities (not “are you gay?” but rather “have you ever engaged in homosexual activities?” Why in a moment) you’ll be living in fear of discovery for the next few months before getting booted out. If you tell the truth you’ll get booted out now. No win.

Then you get to talking to the interviewer. He has a few tips before you get started with the formal interview. He says, “If you need to, tell me you tried marajuana, smoked maybe two joints, didn’t like it and you aren’t doing it now.” None of that is a lie, none of those answers will come back to bite you later. He also suggested that if you ever even played “you show me yours, I’ll show you mine” once with a person of the same sex you should mention it. They don’t like surprises, but at the same time they don’t need the details from you.

They want to know you are being honest and that you have done nothing that you could possibly be blackmailed for.

Here’s where the National Security Agency’s priorities best the priorities of the military, even though both are within the Department of Defense. The most famous defectors from the NSA to the Soviet Union were rumored to have been gay (rumor put to rest), yet the NSA didn’t bar you from admission just because you were gay, as long as you were open about it or were willing to be open about it, so you couldn’t be blackmailed over it. The same with pot usage. They didn’t care how much you did (as long as it didn’t affect your work) but only whether you have and most likely do. The NSA values creative thinking, much of code work involves finding patterns others can’t detect and unconventional solutions.It understands people like that are often gay or have experimented. It’s all about honesty and the benefits of honesty. Ironically, after you’ve been completely honest with them you’re admitted to the most secret building (people know about) in the country.

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell encourages lying, it requires you to pretend you’re someone you aren’t. And it punishes you if you’re honest. Honesty is sacrificed to image.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 08th, 2009 and is filed under Observations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or Trackback from your own site.